Prelude
by Kelly Keil
Summary: "I should have never met him in that deserted parking lot; I should have gotten into my car and driven away when I had the chance." Prequel to Undertow.


TITLE: Prelude  
  
AUTHOR: Kelly Keil  
  
EMAIL: klkeil@ameritech.net  
  
WEBSITE: http://grapefruithead.com/kellyfic  
  
ARCHIVE: Anywhere, just keep my info attached.  
  
FEEDBACK: Is cherished and answered.   
  
RATING: R  
  
CLASSIFICATION: V, A, M/K, Krycek POV  
  
SPOILERS: S2, specifically Ascension and One Breath,   
and some S8 up through DeadAlive.  
  
DISCLAIMER: I don't own them. You know who does.   
  
SUMMARY: "I should have never met him in that   
deserted parking lot; I should have gotten into my   
car and driven away when I had the chance." Prequel   
to Undertow.  
  
NOTE: This little snippet takes place prior to the   
events of Undertow, which can be found here:   
http://grapefruithead.com/kellyfic/Undertow.htm.   
  
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS: Thank you ever so much to my lovely   
and talented betas: JET and Spica. You made it better,  
even if there was no fixing the title.   
  
________________________  
  
Prelude   
By Kelly Keil  
  
  
It's a story that's been told a thousand times   
before. Only the faces are different, only the   
scenery changes. This time the faces were mine and   
Mulder's, the scenery a parking lot deserted save our   
two cars. But that's just window dressing. Only the   
story matters.  
  
I wanted him but he wanted someone else. Who she   
wanted was immaterial. She was gone. Off to Never-  
Never Land with the other Lost Boys and Girls,   
learning how to fly. Maybe if we clapped our hands   
loudly enough, she'd come back. He would have   
clapped his hands for her, clapped his hands until   
they bled. He believed in anything that was   
convenient.  
  
(i do believe in spooks i do believe in spooks i do   
believe i do believe)  
  
I never believed in that bullshit, not even as a kid.   
But that's not important, so never mind me. I'm just   
the man behind the curtain.   
  
"Alex," he said to me, his voice full of all the rage   
and disdain and despair and hope of any embattled   
hero, "tell me where she is."  
  
I didn't bother to ask how he found me -- it didn't   
matter. Perhaps he followed the yellow brick road or   
took a hit of pixie dust or just kept knocking heads   
together until someone talked. One answer is as good   
as another. The story continues on despite its   
characters. Perhaps in spite of them.  
  
"Mulder," I said wanting him gone before I did   
something I'd regret later, "go home."   
  
Mulder advanced toward me, his armor shining damn   
near to blinding me, his righteousness a shield, his   
gun held in a hand that shook only the smallest bit.   
"Fuck that. Tell me. Tell me or I'll kill you right   
now."  
  
I could see that he meant every word and part of me   
welcomed that. It wasn't the ending that I wanted,   
but it was an ending just the same. But the story   
churned onward, trampling my uncertainty and forcing   
words out of my mouth. "She's dead." A lie, but it   
might as well have been the truth. I braced myself   
for the impact of the bullet, thinking of endings,   
both good and bad.  
  
His hand faltered and dropped. With two words I'd   
defeated him, and I stood amazed and almost   
regretful, like Dorothy, horrified to have killed her   
nemesis with a bucket of water.   
  
"No," he said, his hand dropping further until the   
gun was pointing to the cracked pavement at his feet.   
"No. I won't believe it." But I could see his eyes,   
and his eyes did believe, they did believe in spooks   
and they did believe in a world with no Dana Scully.  
  
It annoyed me to see him give up so easily. He   
should have been able to sense she was still alive.   
He shouldn't have been so quick to give up hope.   
What kind of knight-errant was he?   
  
I saw my answer in the slump of his shoulders and the   
weariness of his face. He had been running so long   
that he needed an excuse to stop, and any excuse   
would do. His body didn't care that his mind was   
breaking -- it just wanted to rest.   
  
I gave him the best advice I could, the only words of   
comfort I had, and it was less than he deserved but   
more than what I could easily afford. "Let her go," I   
told him. "She's beyond your reach."   
  
I'd tried to make him stronger, I'd told Them where he   
was weak and They'd eliminated that weakness. I thought   
that he was lucky, if only he would see it. With her   
gone, he could concentrate on what he really needed   
to see. There's nothing like anguish to act like a   
magnifying glass, narrowing your focus down to what's   
important, then enlarging it, making everything else   
blurry. She was a distraction. She had to go.   
  
I wanted to tell him that in time he would see  
that. I wanted him to realize that she wasn't the   
sun rising in the east, or the moon controlling the   
tides. She was just a woman, she wasn't anyone   
important, she wasn't...  
  
(she wasn't me)  
  
...she wasn't the answer he was looking for.  
  
"I...I don't believe you," he repeated, but with less   
and less confidence.  
  
"They'll give you back her body." I wasn't at all   
certain of that -- for all I knew she would be put in   
a mass grave in the desert somewhere, or perhaps left   
in an institution, forever medicated into   
incapacitation. If I could, though, I'd see Mulder   
got her body. He needed to see how her story ended.   
I owed him that, if nothing else. "Go home, Mulder.   
There's nothing you can do to change anything."  
  
"No," he said, advancing on me yet again. I saw he   
wasn't defeated after all. Good always triumphs over   
bad. How could I have forgotten? The gun had   
disappeared somewhere and his hands were balled into   
fists. I turned to the side as the first blow fell,   
and it caught me on the cheek, causing pain but not   
knocking me down.  
  
(mulder what big hands you have all the better to   
hit you with my dear)  
  
I spat blood onto the ground then brought my fist up   
as I raised my body, letting the punch gain momentum.   
Mulder was surprised by my fist striking his jaw, and   
he staggered. The pain in my hand was familiar and   
it didn't bother me. It felt good. It felt good to   
hit something. Anything was better than standing   
there and letting the story take me with it.  
  
Mulder punished me for not being her. I punished him   
for making me want him. The blows fell on me and on   
him, quickly at first, then slowing as we tired and   
hurt set in.   
  
Explosion of pain by my ear. "You let them take   
her."  
  
Blood spurting down Mulder's face. "I *told* them to   
take her, mother fucker."  
  
A crunch felt in my ribs. "Why, for fuck's sake,   
why?"  
  
My fist hit his mouth and his teeth serrated my skin.   
He spat out a tooth. I didn't answer him.  
  
Hands grabbed my shirt and lifted me, pounding me   
against my car. The alarm screamed into the night   
but no one came. No one ever does. "Tell me why,   
you fucker." My head hit the car in time with the   
shrieks of the alarm. It felt like the world was   
falling apart.  
  
Mulder let go of me and I slumped against the car for   
support. "Turn off the alarm," he snarled.   
  
How very civilized, I thought, but was all too glad   
to comply, grateful for the intermission. I stuck my   
key in the lock and then Mulder was up behind me,   
pressing his body into my back. I felt his erection   
pushing at me and went still. How very uncivilized,   
I thought, and wanted to laugh. This was something I   
hadn't expected, hadn't foreseen.   
  
I stiffened and straightened up. "Turn it off,"   
Mulder growled into my ear, his breath hot and coming   
in short pants.  
  
I twisted the key in the lock and the alarm stopped   
mid-squawk. The silence that followed was as heavy   
as the humid air that pressed in on us. Mulder's   
shadow, cast by the nearly full moon, covered mine on   
the car roof and swallowed it whole.  
  
"Tell me why you had them take her," he repeated, his   
voice only a soft rasp this time, nearly a caress,   
but I knew there was poison in that apple. Still his   
erection pushed against my back and I wondered if the   
sweetness of the fruit would make up for the pain it   
concealed.  
  
I couldn't say the truth, that I was jealous, that   
all the things I told myself about Scully making him   
weak were lies, just lies, to cover my thwarted   
desire. She did make him weak, but that was beside   
the point. I wanted him and couldn't have him. When   
the little mermaid was given a dagger by her sisters   
to kill her beloved, she shouldn't have killed   
herself, gaining only the promise of one day earning  
a soul. She should have killed the woman sleeping   
beside her ungrateful prince. That's what I would   
have done, that's how I had re-written the story in   
my head when I was a kid. It's no wonder I turned   
out the way I have.  
  
"It doesn't matter," I finally said. "What's done is   
done. Nothing can bring her back. Nothing."  
  
Mulder sagged against me, as if finally conceding   
defeat, but his erection was still there, pressing   
into me as the weight of his body pressed me against   
my car. None of it felt real, and I was afraid to   
move for fear of breaking the odd spell.  
  
"You owe me," he said at last, sounding tired, but   
below that there was something else. Something like   
resignation and anticipation mingled together. The   
hero conquers his enemy any way he can.  
  
The words held me in place, weaving their magic   
around me. I owed him, and I saw clearly that I did.   
It was a debt that stretched out before me, terrible   
and wonderful at the same time. I shivered a little,   
my body shifting against his, thinking of a debt that   
could never be paid, a spell that could never be   
broken.  
  
I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say anything,   
just looked at the shadow that was our shadow on the   
roof of my car.  
  
He stepped back a little and I turned. There was a   
look on his face that was half desperation and half   
madness. His eyes glittered with it. "You can't   
bring her back," he said, and it was nearly a   
question. He took a step backward towards his own   
car.  
  
"No," I said in a hoarse whisper, wondering where   
this was going, hoping and knowing that everything I   
hoped for was impossible.  
  
Mulder took another step back and I followed. "There's   
something I can do," I rasped out, my mouth dry as   
bleached bones. I cleared my throat and took another   
step forward.   
  
He backed up another step but it didn't seem like   
retreat, more like entreaty. "What can you do?" he   
asked, the words a challenge but his voice hollow.  
  
"I can do this," I said, and dropped to my knees   
before him. Years later I would say nearly the same   
thing to Scully, when their positions were reversed   
with Mulder missing and Scully taking her anger out   
on me. And there I would be, letting her use me as I   
would let Mulder use me, starting this night. But   
all that was yet to come.   
  
This is a story that has been told a thousand times   
before and will be told a thousand more. Only the   
faces and places change. The story is always the   
same. The story is of love desired and love   
thwarted, needs that are satisfied and left wanting,   
hope found and despair confirmed. Without the story,   
we are nothing, just puppets left forgotten in a box   
under some child's bed.   
  
I knelt before him and it all was familiar, I could   
feel it all had happened before, even though I had   
never touched him like this previously and had never   
thought I ever would. When I took him in my mouth, I   
already knew the taste, musty and salty and sweet.   
This was right, I knew it was, from the tips of the   
fingers that gripped his hips to my toes, curled in   
my shoes as I unconsciously clenched every muscle in   
my body. I heard his moan, a soft sound that fell   
through the heavy night air, and felt his hands   
settle tentatively on my shoulders before moving with   
casual deliberation to grip my hair.   
  
I wanted him so much that it was an ache I felt   
tearing through me, one not easily soothed. It   
would take a lifetime of touching him to ease the raw   
need that had flared up, fed and encouraged into full   
fury by this simple gesture of my tongue sliding   
along his flesh.   
  
I should have never knelt before him like he was   
something I could worship. I should have never met him   
in that deserted parking lot; I should have gotten into   
my car and driven away when I had the chance. But the   
story demanded that my place was there, my mouth on his   
body, my place at his feet. Who was I to fight fate?   
And I was so young then. Not innocent, not by then, but   
young, and still willing to believe, if not in fairy   
tales, then at least in heroes.  
  
As he came in my mouth, I looked up at him. The moon   
shone brightly on his face, which was turned up   
toward the sky. She's not there, I thought as I   
swallowed his come. She's in a boxcar somewhere,   
locked away more securely than any princess in a   
tower of briars, and sleeping just as soundly.   
  
As I stood, my knees cracked like gunshots. Mulder   
pulled me towards him. "I probably should have   
killed you," he said. Then he kissed me, his tongue   
filling my mouth, and it is this memory I would dredge   
up later when I jacked off alone in my apartment. My   
own erection throbbed against Mulder and I knew there   
would be no relief for me that night except by my own   
hand. "But you owed me," he said. He pulled away   
from me and emptiness panged through me.   
  
(if i only had a heart if i only had a brain if i   
only had the nerve)  
  
"Mulder..."  
  
"Go away. I want to be alone." There was a look in   
his eyes that shut my mouth on any argument I might   
have had. No matter. I'd gotten what I'd wanted, or   
as near to it as to make no difference. When   
thinking of wish fulfillment, it's greedy to split   
hairs. It was useless to think that I wanted more.   
Might as well wish for magic beans or for straw to turn   
into gold.  
  
I opened my car door and got inside. I was about to   
close the door when Mulder said something else. "I   
could kill you, even now, but you still owe me." My   
heart pounded. I felt something shift, as if I could   
sense the future:  
  
When, weeks later, he stumbled into my apartment   
reeking of whiskey and fear and sour guilt, crying   
that he couldn't sleep, that all he wanted was sleep,   
I let him do what he wanted to me because I still   
owed him.  
  
When, months later, I was told to take Scully's   
nearly dead body and dispose of it, I made sure she   
got to a hospital, even knowing the price I would   
eventually pay for it, because I still owed him.  
  
When, years later, I nearly found happiness with the   
woman he loved, with the only person he has ever   
loved, I destroyed my chance with her in order to   
bring him back to life because I still owed him.  
  
But all of this was yet to come, and there is still more   
of the story to tell. I can let you in on one secret,   
however. We don't all live happily ever after. It's   
something I've always known.   
  
Dorothy never got back to Kansas. Alice went mad in   
Wonderland. Sleeping beauty never woke up. The   
little mermaid never got a soul. Stories lie. I   
know this. I know.  
  
This is a story that's been told a thousand times   
before. It will be told a thousand more. Only the   
faces change. Only the scenery moves. None of us   
really matter.  
  
  
End  
  
Comments and such can be directed to klkeil@ameritech.net. 


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